Hey guys, Red Impact 001 here to give you a guide on the newest AD carry to enter our arsenal: Varus, the arrow of retribution. In this guide I have suggested item, skill, mastery, and rune selection. I will be going over the reasons as to why I choose them and why I think that you need to make those same choices. :D

Ah, runes. How I love you. Now for the Seal and Glyph choices there is really only one selection that makes any sense as for what your choices should be. Armor for seals, and magic resist for glyphs, nothing else is really an option. However, I believe that flat armor and flat magic resist is the only way to go because of how vulnerable Varus (and most other AD carries) is early game. You need the boost early game that the flat seals and glyphs give you to survive the poking that happens in lane and the ganks that happen pre-level 11. As for the marks and the quints, this is really where AD carries have their disagreements. I will explain why I choose that flat AD for both. With the recent nerf to the Doran's Blade (-20 hp), the battle between boots and pots first vs blade first was settled in my mind. You NEED to open with boots and three health pots, loosing 1/5th of the life that the blade provided simply made the blade an inferior choice when choosing opening items. And in order to keep up with the damage necessary to effectively last hit minions and poke opposing AD carries and supports, flat damage marks and quints were needed. That's why I have switch from Armor Penetration marks and quints to flat AD. And I believe everyone should. The extra 15 damage hits harder than you might think.

There is some disagreement with what masteries to take with Varus. You want to take all the standard offensive points up to 21. There now remains 9 points and the debate about where to put them. Some people suggest putting 6 into the mana per level and the mana regen, but I disagree. You should never have mana problems as an AD carry. You shouldn't be using your abilities very much. You simply want to auto attack and last hit creeps and harass with auto attack and maybe an ability here or there. But really your mana shouldn't ever drop below 1/4. If this happens regularly, you are doing it wrong. So I feel the points are best spent in the health per level and the nice 30 health buff for early game. Plus the 6 extra armor and the summoners buff on your heal. The armor will help with trading vs your opponent early game and the buff to the heal is great. And I don't think that the 15 sec buff to your flash is really worth losing out on any of the health and armor.

Now, like I said earlier you should be starting out with the basic boots and three health pots. From there just last hit, harass a little, but play defensively, farm and keep the creeps in the middle of the lane. Don't push, and don't let him push. This is to keep yourself safe from ganks (the not pushing part) and not let your turret steal your creeps (the not letting the opponent push). This is the BEST way that you can farm effectively, and stay in lane gathering money and experience to help your team the best late game. After you get to about 2200 gold, or if you can't stay that long 1650 but prefer to at least stay till 2070... Thats enough to get your next items BF Sword and Berzerker's Greaves. Or just a BF Sword and maybe a dagger. Then continue farming and make your way along to your main three items: (the three main items that should be in any AD Carry's possession) the Infinity Edge, the Phantom Dancer, and the Bloodthirster. From here really it varies, but usually your opponents will start to build armor in which case you will need a Last Whisper to get that MASSIVE 40% armor penetration. Since you are now entering god mode, you will become a target. Take a Banshee's Veil to increase your protection with both health, magic resist, and that awesome spell shield every 45 sec. Great survivability, and that means you can help your team more.

First to get the obvious out of the way. Take your utimate spell 6,11, and 16. First you should open with Piercing Arrow and max it first. This means putting a point into it every other level, maxing it by level 9. Now I think that the second spell to be maxed should be Hail Of Arrows. This is because at no increase of mana cost, both the damage and the SLOW increase. And this is huge, as your only cc spell and the only spell that can help you escape ganks or cc enemy champions in a team fight. The increase in slow at no addition mana cost is the kicker for me. And the damage is nice I suppose, but really this isn't a damage spell. The last to max is your Blighted Quiver, the reason that I don't think this should be maxed first is the very little damage it does per shot (take opponents magic resist into consideration and its doing 2-3 damage per shot extra and at max 7-10, this isn't making any difference really). Plus when you trigger the blight it does damage based on opponents maximum health. This does the most at end levels when people are maxed out on health, leveling this early just really doesn't make enough of a difference to counter out the HUGE benefit of the aoe slow and healing de-buff of Hail Of Arrows. That is why you should max Hail Of Arrows before Blighted Quiver.

These are just obvious. Flash because its usefulness is unparalleled. The ability to appear over a wall for the purpose of escaping or attacking is just too good to pass up. And then take Heal because it does more healing to the player casting it than to others, so you need to take it not the support. Plus there is nothing better than baiting an opposing player with low health, getting them to commit, and the healing just as you are about to die and finishing them off. Plus great for in a jam to give you that little bit more health to survive an engagement gone wrong. Its just too useful to pass up. Everything else is just not worth the trade off or should be taken by the support, like Exhaust or Ignite.

This is the best set-up for Varus that I think is possible. I am going to say a few more things about the items in this summary, if the enemy isn't building armor, feel free to trade for more health and AD and that AWESOME slow with Frozen Mallet. If you need more magic resist or they are CCing you too much, trade your shoes for Mercury Treads and get that fantastic tenacity (reduced CC). There are many options to go with items because every game is different. However I suggest that you never deviate from the three main items I mentioned, Infinity Edge, Bloodthirster, and Phantom Dancer. Without these three, you will be significantly less effective and contribute very little to team fights. Final thoughts, you are not an effective caster, you are an auto-attacking champion who functions best critical hitting for massive damage. Play smart, don't initiate, farm, and you will unlock the GOD that is a farmed well positioned Varus. Plus, when ur enemy is running in fear from you, nail them with a fully charged Piercing Arrow to trigger the blight and kill them where they stand.